Lees tied up again for courtroom display

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"At the end of the day I was there. I know what happened"
Joanne Lees arrives at the Supreme Court in Darwin yesterday.Photo: Glenn Campbell

Joanne Lees has angrily denied that she had wrongly identified
her attacker as the Broome mechanic Bradley John Murdoch,
declaring: "I'd recognise him anywhere."

"At the end of the day, I was there," Ms Lees told a Supreme
Court jury sitting in Darwin yesterday. "I know what happened."

The Crown has alleged that Murdoch attacked Ms Lees, 32, and
murdered her boyfriend, Peter Falconio, on a dark and lonely
stretch of the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory on July 14,
2002.

Murdoch, 47, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The body of Mr Falconio, then 28, has never been found.

In court yesterday, Ms Lees was bound with a tie and asked to
sit on the floor three metres from Murdoch who was sitting in the
dock flanked by two guards.

Wearing a singlet top and tracksuit trousers, Ms Lees, showing
no emotion, demonstrated how she slipped her bound hands from
behind her back to the front as she hid under a bush after
escaping.

Ms Lees had earlier told the court she was threatened with a
gun, punched in the head and bound with her wrists behind her back
with homemade handcuffs made from cable ties. Justice Brian Martin
said that Ms Lees took one to two seconds to make the manoeuvre
while she was "sitting with her knees up and she moved her hands
from back to front".

Ms Lees denied an encounter with Murdoch in Alice Springs on the
day Mr Falconio disappeared.

Grant Algie, Murdoch's defence lawyer, questioned Ms Lees about
the movements of her and Mr Falconio before they left Alice Springs
to drive 310 kilometres north along the Stuart Highway where
Murdoch allegedly flagged them down.

Vincent Millar testified that early the morning after the attack
he saw a woman he identified as Ms Lees jump out onto the bitumen
as he was driving a road train.

"I thought she went under the second or third trailer," he
said.

But Mr Millar said as he was looking for "an arm, a leg, pieces
of body or clothing" he heard Ms Lees walking alongside the
driver's side of the truck.

Mr Millar said she was calling out "Help! Help!" and threw
herself at him.

Mr Millar said he woke his co-driver, Rodney Adams, who was
asleep in the truck cabin.

Mr Millar said that he and Mr Adams cut cable ties that were
around Ms Lees's wrists. He said Ms Lees also had tape on her head
and legs.

"I asked questions She said a bloke pulled them over,
saying there were sparks out of the back of the car. She said she
didn't want to stop but Pete said it would be all right - there's
only one bloke and a dog," Mr Millar said.

Mr Millar said after Ms Lees had got into the truck she said:
"I'd like to find my boyfriend and my car."

Mr Millar said he agreed to "have a little bit of a look
around". "I said 'let's go and have a look'," but then Ms Lees told
him her attacker had a gun.

He said he then drove out of the area and notified police at
Barrow Creek, a town south along the highway.

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"At the end of the day I was there. I know what happened" &#133;
Joanne Lees arrives at the Supreme Court in Darwin yesterday.